A microteaching session involves a small group of peer instructors teaching short lessons in front of each other in order to gain feedback on their teaching. The lessons are recorded for later viewing and discussion. Microteaching enables instructors to:
focus on practicing teaching skills in a confidential, non-threatening environment;
receive feedback on their teaching from multiple perspectives;
Microteaching Lesson Plans The lesson plans are designed for a 45 min. teaching period. The teacher will select specific activities for a 20 min. teaching period.
After practising the DI principles in class (through MI based activities) there are some remarks to be made:
- The overall time limit (45 min. for both the presentation and the task-doing) is utopistic. The students need another 45 min. lesson to complete the tasks.
- The feedback of the students themselves is encouraging since almost all (with the exception of one out of 24) enjoyed the use of the PC and the OH projector, the omission of the class books and the recurrent appearance of the KWL table along the sessions.
- The task with the full approval of the class turned out to be the bodily/kinaesthetic one since the students were officially allowed to “stretch” a bit and “chat”, even within the lesson limits.
- As the teacher of the class, next time I will be better equipped with the necessary realia (clothes/accessories/items identifying seasons) which can be hampering but prove to make justice to the visual/spatial task.
- The task I feel happy with is the naturalist one (mind you, it is the modified version after the feedback I got from the school advisor in the first place).It is intriguing, as the students realise that some columns will not be filled at all, (especially the only spring/only autumn columns, where weather conditions overlap), whereas others will be fully or sparsely filled in.
- In my lesson plan the students are not given much choice to the tasks, i.e. they have to complete all (8) of them and just “sign” (write their name on) the 5 they like most, thus revealing the prevailing intelligences in them. Since DI means the students can primarily opt out for what they feel safe to deal with, next time they should be allowed to select the tasks attuned to their likes.
- Last but not least, I have realized that the children need enough space to write in, so the worksheets must be designed accordingly.
As far as the microteaching is concerned, I assume that it went well. Because of the fact that I could not assess my colleagues using the K-W-L chart, some time was lost to form the teams randomly. I had thought of giving numbers (from 1-4) so as to end up with teams of four (or five) but I had not foreseen that there would be far more people than I had expected. (I was told that there would be 26, I had produced material for 30, and I ended up with about 35.)Therefore, the numbers were not enough, I had to take some back to give them to others thus spending more than two minutes I had given for the team-making. As for the activities, I realized that some of the questions designed for the lower group (memory game), were given different answers from different groups, so on the cards I may have to write the numbers (i.e. 1 for the first question and 1 for its answer), because my purpose is that the students will end up knowing which the answer to each question is. I think that the activities of the rest two groups were OK. However, the time was not enough, not all the groups were able to act out their interviews. In my class where there are 20 students, I may have time to do it, though. Finally, I think that the goal was accomplished and the “students” felt content.
I intend to do the specific lesson around March in class and then I will reflect on it.
Lesson Plan by Ms Giannopoulou (Primary Education)
The focus of my lesson was the food pyramid and the different tasks based on Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory. Next, I’ll attempt to reflect on any weaknesses or positive aspects appearing in my lessons.
Although I had programmed to spend two lessons on this project, reality contradicted me since I spent about four lessons. I followed my lesson plan throughout andall the projects were sticked to the class board so as for the pupils to gain more self-confidence and pride on their accomplishments.
First of all, the pupils were given a questionnaire in order to define their intelligence. According to the results they were split into three four members groups, that is, mathematical –logical, musical-rythmical and visual-spatial group. The verbal-linguistic group started to engage in the task but did not manage to produce a product since they had to attend lessons in the “assistance/feedback class” ? (ενισχυτικήδιδασκαλία).
More specifically now, I think that the questionnaire was a bit difficult for them, since I had to translate each sentence in Greek. Additionally, some of the pupils were puzzled about the transfer of the numbers in the correct boxes. The mathematical –logical group chose the mind-map task but engaged mostly in chattering. Additionally, they did not understand exactly what they had to produce, since they started first with the categorization of the different kinds of food. However, they produced a colourful mind-map and all group members participated in the presentation of their work.
As far as the musical-rythmical group is concerned, it consisted of mostly weak pupils. They had to argue in a loud manner about the words of their song and only one of them managed to sing it in front of the class. The rest were too embarrassed to engage in this activity. I helped them with providing most of the words since they had difficulties in finding the exact english words.
Lastly, the visual-spatial group was the most careful and quiet group of all. They really enjoyed drawing, although they included mostly fruit and vegetables. The group presented their work altogether although their fellow pupils did not pay much attention. As a final task, the pupils sticked post-it papers on a big food pyramid. Their favourite food group was the fruit one since nearly all of the post-its belonged to it.
As a homework task, I distributed some photocopies of a food pyramid and asked them to draw and paint different kinds of foods according to each group. Only two pupils brought me their homework. Actually, the first pupil misunderstood and wrote words in each group instead of drawings of different kinds of food.
All in all, I think, I should have taught them more vocabulary on different kinds of food so as for them to be more creative in their products. Also, it might have been more helpful if I had allocated more time on a talk about the different kinds of Gardner’s intelligences so as to accomplish a better understanding of their task
A microteaching session involves a small group of peer instructors teaching short lessons in front of each other in order to gain feedback on their teaching. The lessons are recorded for later viewing and discussion. Microteaching enables instructors to:
- focus on practicing teaching skills in a confidential, non-threatening environment;
- receive feedback on their teaching from multiple perspectives;
- receive supportive feedback from peers (http://www.teaching.utoronto.ca/gsta/events/microteaching.htm)
Microteaching Lesson PlansThe lesson plans are designed for a 45 min. teaching period. The teacher will select specific activities for a 20 min. teaching period.
- Lesson Plan by Ms Karantzina (Primary Education)
LESSON PLAN KARANTZINA.docx
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Reflection by Ms KarantzinaAfter practising the DI principles in class (through MI based activities) there are some remarks to be made:
- The overall time limit (45 min. for both the presentation and the task-doing) is utopistic. The students need another 45 min. lesson to complete the tasks.
- The feedback of the students themselves is encouraging since almost all (with the exception of one out of 24) enjoyed the use of the PC and the OH projector, the omission of the class books and the recurrent appearance of the KWL table along the sessions.
- The task with the full approval of the class turned out to be the bodily/kinaesthetic one since the students were officially allowed to “stretch” a bit and “chat”, even within the lesson limits.
- As the teacher of the class, next time I will be better equipped with the necessary realia (clothes/accessories/items identifying seasons) which can be hampering but prove to make justice to the visual/spatial task.
- The task I feel happy with is the naturalist one (mind you, it is the modified version after the feedback I got from the school advisor in the first place).It is intriguing, as the students realise that some columns will not be filled at all, (especially the only spring/only autumn columns, where weather conditions overlap), whereas others will be fully or sparsely filled in.
- In my lesson plan the students are not given much choice to the tasks, i.e. they have to complete all (8) of them and just “sign” (write their name on) the 5 they like most, thus revealing the prevailing intelligences in them. Since DI means the students can primarily opt out for what they feel safe to deal with, next time they should be allowed to select the tasks attuned to their likes.
- Last but not least, I have realized that the children need enough space to write in, so the worksheets must be designed accordingly.
- Lesson Plan by Ms Tzalmakli (Secondary Education)
Lesson Plan Tzalmakli.pdf
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- 198 KB
Worksheets (Ms Tzalmakli)Reflection by Ms Tzalmakli
As far as the microteaching is concerned, I assume that it went well. Because of the fact that I could not assess my colleagues using the K-W-L chart, some time was lost to form the teams randomly. I had thought of giving numbers (from 1-4) so as to end up with teams of four (or five) but I had not foreseen that there would be far more people than I had expected. (I was told that there would be 26, I had produced material for 30, and I ended up with about 35.)Therefore, the numbers were not enough, I had to take some back to give them to others thus spending more than two minutes I had given for the team-making. As for the activities, I realized that some of the questions designed for the lower group (memory game), were given different answers from different groups, so on the cards I may have to write the numbers (i.e. 1 for the first question and 1 for its answer), because my purpose is that the students will end up knowing which the answer to each question is. I think that the activities of the rest two groups were OK. However, the time was not enough, not all the groups were able to act out their interviews. In my class where there are 20 students, I may have time to do it, though. Finally, I think that the goal was accomplished and the “students” felt content.
I intend to do the specific lesson around March in class and then I will reflect on it.
- Lesson Plan by Ms Giannopoulou (Primary Education)
Microteaching ALEXANDRA (1).pdf
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- 301 KB
- Presentation by Ms Giannopoulou
Microteaching Giannopulou.pdf
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- 852 KB
- Reflection by Ms Giannopoulou
Reflection on the lesson on the Food PyramidThe focus of my lesson was the food pyramid and the different tasks based on Gardner’s multiple intelligence theory. Next, I’ll attempt to reflect on any weaknesses or positive aspects appearing in my lessons.
Although I had programmed to spend two lessons on this project, reality contradicted me since I spent about four lessons. I followed my lesson plan throughout andall the projects were sticked to the class board so as for the pupils to gain more self-confidence and pride on their accomplishments.
First of all, the pupils were given a questionnaire in order to define their intelligence. According to the results they were split into three four members groups, that is, mathematical –logical, musical-rythmical and visual-spatial group. The verbal-linguistic group started to engage in the task but did not manage to produce a product since they had to attend lessons in the “assistance/feedback class” ? (ενισχυτικήδιδασκαλία).
More specifically now, I think that the questionnaire was a bit difficult for them, since I had to translate each sentence in Greek. Additionally, some of the pupils were puzzled about the transfer of the numbers in the correct boxes. The mathematical –logical group chose the mind-map task but engaged mostly in chattering. Additionally, they did not understand exactly what they had to produce, since they started first with the categorization of the different kinds of food. However, they produced a colourful mind-map and all group members participated in the presentation of their work.
As far as the musical-rythmical group is concerned, it consisted of mostly weak pupils. They had to argue in a loud manner about the words of their song and only one of them managed to sing it in front of the class. The rest were too embarrassed to engage in this activity. I helped them with providing most of the words since they had difficulties in finding the exact english words.
Lastly, the visual-spatial group was the most careful and quiet group of all. They really enjoyed drawing, although they included mostly fruit and vegetables. The group presented their work altogether although their fellow pupils did not pay much attention. As a final task, the pupils sticked post-it papers on a big food pyramid. Their favourite food group was the fruit one since nearly all of the post-its belonged to it.
As a homework task, I distributed some photocopies of a food pyramid and asked them to draw and paint different kinds of foods according to each group. Only two pupils brought me their homework. Actually, the first pupil misunderstood and wrote words in each group instead of drawings of different kinds of food.
All in all, I think, I should have taught them more vocabulary on different kinds of food so as for them to be more creative in their products. Also, it might have been more helpful if I had allocated more time on a talk about the different kinds of Gardner’s intelligences so as to accomplish a better understanding of their task